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Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Most Disappointed Squirrel Ever

A motivated squirrel can climb eight feet up a galvanized steel pipe:

Squirrel atop WS-5000 Weather Station
Squirrel atop WS-5000 Weather Station

The anemometer on the right has a ring of sharp wires intended to deter birds:

Weather station with additional spikes
Weather station with additional spikes

Chickadees can perch between the wires and squirrels apparently just ignore the sharp ends:

Squirrel on WS-5000 Anemometer spikes
Squirrel on WS-5000 Anemometer spikes

No matter how hard that squirrel looked, there were no nuts to be found anywhere in that tree. Moments later it ran down the pole and loped across the yard to forage under the seed feeder.

The terrible picture quality comes from a Pixel 6a phone camera zoomed all the way tight. I want an optical telephoto lens built into the phone, but those phones seem intended to reduce the risks of having severe wallet overpressure.

Comments

4 responses to “Most Disappointed Squirrel Ever”

  1. profoundlyfreshf805961439 Avatar
    profoundlyfreshf805961439

    I have what appears to be the same rain gauge with a different annemometer unit, and the same wire bird discouraging device as local crows were using the rain gauge funnel as a commode :), clogging it up.

    I bent the wires inward at about a 45 deg angle to limit the open area forming a cone over the top of the funnel. — they don’t touch but leave a much smaller opening of, if I had to guess, about 3 cm in diameter. I think that was called out in the instructions for the wire spike add on (I purchased it seperately after getting tired of unclogging the rain gauge which is on my roof). Maybe that would help?

    Best wishes and thanks for years of great content.

    –Neil H.

    Reply
    1. Ed Avatar
      Ed

      The straight-wire rings stopped all latrine events, although our birds may be less determined than yours.

      I remembered the three AA cells I just installed, looked at the house roof, considered my future life, and deployed the pole. With the treeline on the west, the land rising to the north, and the house wrapped around the other two sides, the anemometer reports nothing but gentle breezes from random directions.

      I am content and have lived to write up the tale! :grin:

      Reply
  2. tantris Avatar
    tantris

    Amazon haul regularly has small solar panels with plastic frame and mount for around $10 ( searching “solar panel camera”). They are intended as battery trickle charger for cameras – kind of a larger version of crappy lawn lights – and are randomly labeled 5W, 6W, 8W, with some hope that these wattage claims and panel size are an indicator for differences in usable wattage.

    But other than that, I’d say you are measuring the correct wind speed for your backyard. Just not the one you need to prospect for wind turbine locations. I think, hyper-localized weather data is useful. There might be frost at the TV station, but my garden is 2° warmer, and the patch at the house even warmer than that.

    Reply
    1. Ed Avatar
      Ed

      Hyper-localized is definitely the case, particularly for the rain gauge. Our rain and the Official Rain at the airport often differ by 50%, showing the effect of cloud bands passing overhead.

      Reply

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